Date: January 3, 1750-51, 1807

"Therefore I must insist, that every woman, whether of equal prudence with Clarissa, or not, whether the man proposed be quite as odious as Solmes, or not, whether she have an absolute aversion to him, or only be indifferent, or rather averse to him, whether she be in love with some other, or not...

— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)

Date: 1758

"Fortune is an evil Chain to the Body; and Vice, to the Soul. For he whose Body is unbound, and whose Soul is chained, is a Slave. On the contrary, he whose Body is chained, and his Soul unbound, is free."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1758

"The Chain of the Body, Nature unbinds by Death; and Vice, by Money: the Chain of the Soul, Virtue unbinds, by Learning, and Experience, and philosophic Exercise."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: December 1790

"The imperfection of all modern governments must, without waiting to repeat the trite remark, that all human institutions are unavoidably imperfect, in a great measure have arisen from this simple circumstance, that the constitution, if such an heterogeneous mass deserve that name, was settled in...

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: 1792

"Thus degraded, her reason, her misty reason! is employed rather to burnish than to snap her chains."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: 1793

"Of all bondage, mental bondage is surely the most fatal; the absurd despotism which has hitherto, with more than gothic barbarity, enslaved the female mind, the enervating and degrading system of manners by which the understandings of women have been chained down to frivolity and trifles, have i...

— Hays, Mary (1760-1843)

Date: 1796

"Camilla dissented not from the opinion; but the doctrine to which it was easy to agree, it was difficult to put in practice; and her ardent mind believed itself fettered for ever, and for ever unhappy."

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1796

"Should he now, then, make her deem him exacting, and tenacious of prerogative? no; it might shackle the freedom of her mind in their future intercourse."

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1796

"The speeches of the unsuspicious Eugenia, that a moment before would have past unheeded, now regaled her renovated fancy with a thousand amusing images, which so vigorously struggled against her sadness and her terrors, that they were soon nearly driven from the field by their sportive assailant...

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: September 22, 2015

"This is not to say that "Tender Torrent" wasn't "fun" (it seems to be out of print today, the most enduring form of censorship); but for me, its greatest entertainment value lay in returning it to its owner, aware of the lewd visions that seethed beneath her sunny exterior. And really, that perc...

— Schillinger, Liesl